Since Omaha North High School opened its’ doors in 1924, many different global events have taken place. These events include World War II, the Great Depression, and COVID-19. Although these events did not directly occur at Omaha North High School, the effects of their occurrence impacted the high school.
According to the Library of Congress, all together, the Great Depression and World War II lasted about 16 years, falling between the years of 1929 and 1945. During this time, most activities, including the All-City Gymnastics Meet and music festival were cancelled. Sports at the school also felt the effects. All sports were canceled or put on hold except ones that occurred during the spring due to funding and not finding enough sponsors.
During the 1930s, North was still experiencing the effects of the Great Depression. Many members of the alumni came back from the war and started focusing on postgraduate work. Although residents were returning home, the economic state was still impacting the school. The wrestling state tournament in 1934 was cancelled, due to the low turnout numbers as well as the funding.
In 1933-1934 the newspaper staff coined the term “Old Man Depression” in their productions. School activities such as The Viking Day tradition, which was a showing of a movie before football games was dropped.
The North Star staff was cut in half and became a monthly publication rather than weekly due to funding. The Polar Log, the yearbook, also suffered greatly. The yearbook took an 11-year hiatus due to funding and did not return until 1946. North was the only school that did not have a yearbook at the time.
According to the Viking Book, Bill Scott and June Campbell led a campaign to revive the Polar Log yearbook in 1934. However, 500 orders were needed for the cost of one dollar and 50 cent books. Which could not be met during the depression.
Due to the stress of the events, health and moral problems started to plague the building. During the 1942-1943 school year, schools implemented a two-year gym requirement to get students in better shape for the war.
Omaha North also felt effects from the COVID-19 pandemic. According to World Health Organization (WHO) coronavirus disease or COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Halfway through the 2019-2020 school year, students and staff were quarantined to their houses.
“OPS did not have online classes during the 4th quarter of 2019-2020 school year. We were just to email students and give them opportunities to make up things to improve their grade,” said Elizabeth Prusha, a Physics and Engineering teacher at North.
By the next school year, students were taking online courses and classes, while teachers would be in their classrooms on the other side of the screen.
“It was inconsistent, the first quarter was completely online, and we followed basically the regular bell schedule but completely remote. Then we transitioned to the two-three model where half of the kids did two days in person and three remote, vice versa switching every other week,” said Ashley Hankel, 2024 North High graduate.
These years were the first time that teachers had to solely teach online. Not only were teachers navigating online teaching, but students were also navigating online learning. Aside from the learning curve were also present with the iPads.
“There was constant issues, assignment format, some teachers had no idea what they were doing, iPad space was an issue I had, different programs not working the way they should, teams would randomly kick people out, there was a problem with students kicking other students out of team calls, break out groups kind of sucked, apps became unavailable,” said Hankel.
Students had to figure out how to use the new device, while trying to learn new content being taught to them. Many times, teachers struggled with being able to tell if students were actually engaged in the lessons or just logging on.
“It’s hard to say what the cause was for students not doing their work. Were they struggling? Were they sleeping? Were they watching siblings who were also at home?” said Prusha.
Halfway through the 2020-2021 school year, students were given the choice to either finish the year remote or come back to school with masks on.
“We had the option to choose if we wanted to attend daily or stay remote. But I remember at least one week we had to go completely remote again because there were too many people and staff who got sick,” said Hankel
However, the following school year all students came back to school but had to wear masks.
The only exception to wearing masks all the time was when students were eating breakfast or lunch. Students were allowed to take their masks off to eat. The 2021-2022 school year allowed students and staff to make a choice regarding their masks.
“I was so happy to have my students back in the classroom with me. I felt like I could reach them much better, and they could actually understand what was going on. And I knew they were paying attention and not sleeping or doing other things that might have pulled them from the class at home,” said Prusha.
